


Behind the Walls

by Beauteousmajesty



Series: On discovery [14]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Hurt / Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, None of my Nordics are cishet, Sharing a Bed, Storting, Trans Characters, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 21:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20053162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beauteousmajesty/pseuds/Beauteousmajesty
Summary: Being nearly two thousand years old gives you a massive scope for nightmares, so Norway can’t sleep.Norway’s government have a spreadsheet to keep track of when Norway’s not doing so well, and he definitely doesn’t know about it.





	Behind the Walls

Norway is scared of his own history. He hates to admit it, but secretly he thinks they all are. He is only scared at night, when he is alone, and the silent darkness leaves room for imagination and memory.

He doesn’t like to sleep alone. Even Sweden is better company than solitude. Sharing a bed with someone, anyone, is enough to keep him grounded. He’s been sharing with Iceland and Denmark since their bed was a pile of straw or furs with no structure to keep them apart.

Modernity has assigned rules and structures to sleeping, but they are nations, and there are some rules that they’re happy to transcend. There’s been very few parts of Norway’s life in which he’s slept alone, so doing that is always slightly unnerving.

He’s spent a large proportion of his life with Denmark at his side. So much so that waking up without Denmark is always crushingly lonely. Iceland is a good substitute for Denmark, his little brother is almost as warm, although not nearly as tall as Denmark. Sharing a bed is good for Is too, Norway thinks, being a nation is a lonely task, especially if you’re a tiny island in the middle of nowhere with a population of approximately four people. Island is always a little bit touch starved (aren’t they all really), and Norway doesn’t mind giving his brother some genuine physical contact. Is is always a lot clingier when he gets too tired to remember he’s too old and cool to rely on his family now, or whatever his current attitude is.

Fin is always happy to share a bed with Norway, there’s not really any period in their history where they’ve been forced together in any way, so sleeping together is free from tainted memories. Fin is possibly even more messed up than Norway, so he appreciates the company.

Even though Sweden is technically his next door neighbour, Norway doesn’t tend to sleep near him. As much as the company helps, waking up in Sweden tends to freak him out, and he doesn’t invite Sweden over all that much. Even if politically he and Sve are on good terms now, there’s a big gap between them personally.

That leaves him where he is now, alone in the dark. It is midweek, Denmark’s down in Copenhagen, he won’t see him until the weekend. He’ll see Sweden at their next meeting in a couple of weeks, but Iceland and Finland he won’t see until the next European meeting. None of the children are visiting. They all prefer to live in their respective capitals, and Norway is content to let their governments watch them.

Nethertheless, he is alone and it is dark. Darkness prompts his memory. From it he can feel the piercing gaze of a beak masked plague doctor and feel the watchful eyes of his long lost dead. In the dark he remembers the faces of the people he’s buried, those skeletons of deserted villages.

In the dark he remembers the fierce roar of fire as his body overheats. So he kicks off his blankets before the cold threat of exposure sets in, reminding him of the icy cold of frostbite and the ice of metal chains. He knows he’s panicking for no good reason, he checked his room before he went to bed. Regardless of the irrationality of his fear, he lets the fingers of his right hand close around his wedding ring and wills it into its knife form so he can hold it close to himself for safety. Only then does he slip back under his layers of bedding, close his eyes and try to sleep.

Sleep does not come easily to Norway when he is alone. He has no familiar breathing to focus on to reassure himself of his company. He has no comforting warmth to steal with his always freezing feet. He is lonely and sad in the darkness. He loves his independence, but hates the loneliness that comes with it.

Eventually he falls asleep with his knife clutched in his hands, his quilt pulled up over his head and at least one blanket dislodged onto the floor. He is woken, too early for his liking, by the shrill ringing of his alarm, forcing him to another day of nationhood.

His ribs scream at him as he begins to move, so he waits for them to settle at an ignorable level of pain before throwing on his clothes. He finds at least two socks with holes in before he settles on a pair, throwing the broken ones into his mending pile. The mending pile has grown strangely large since he last did anything with it but he’s half hoping Denmark will sort it for him if he leaves it long enough. Denmark has more patience for mending, even if Norway is perfectly capable of mending his own things. Norway prefers to mend furniture rather than clothing, and Denmark is usually happy to oblige him.

He’s beginning to wear through the soles of his boots again, he notices as he shoves them on his feet, so he makes a note to visit the cobbler at some point in the next week to get them resoled. When he’s dressed, he realises that everything he’s wearing is older than some of his government members and will probably last him longer than some of their careers.

Everything he’s wearing today, he picked because it was comfortable. He’s got no important meetings so there’s really no need to look pressed and businesslike. He’s wearing a jumper than Iceland knitted for him as a gift to celebrate 20 years of independence from Sweden. The red, white and blue pattern is very pretty, even if the pattern is very heavy on the blue front and more strongly mirrors Iceland’s own flag. The jumper is thick and warm, and Norway likes it a lot. It’s a lot more structurally sound than any of Denmark’s creations, which is why Dan is in charge of mending, but it is thick and bulky enough that Norway can forgo binding and let his ribs have a well deserved break.

It’s not far for him to walk to the Storting once he’s dressed and he’s brushed his teeth. He stifles a yawn as he settles in at his desk and opens up the first file of legal documentation his government want him to look at. It’s boring. Finding loopholes in laws is something he’s good at, but his government are getting better at avoiding them, leaving Norway nothing but boring documents to check. The file he’s currently reading is doing nothing to wake him up. It’s important, yes, but it’s also incredibly dry.

A young member of his government finds him asleep on his desk mid morning, after popping in to inquire if Norway had once again eschewed breakfast. In accordance with office policy, after retrieving all of their work, and before settling down to keep Norway company as he slept, an entry is added to the Top-Secret-We’re-Only-Politely-Concerned-About-The-Well-Being-Of-Our-Nation-Spreadsheet, which indicates that sending a message to Denmark is to be the government’s next port of call.

They’ve got a deal with Denmark, as he’s one of the only people who can reliably get their nation to eat and sleep properly. They’ll let him know when Norway’s gone without sleeping or eating properly for at least three days in each of at least four successive weeks and he’ll come and look after their nation for a bit without telling Norway on them. The deal is older than all of the current members of the Storting, they’ve inherited it, but the spreadsheet is new. They’re fairly certain that Norway doesn’t know about it, they like to think they’re subtle.

The message to Denmark isn’t hard to send, they all know the codes at this point. The young official adds a picture of their sleeping nation to the message to emphasise its point before sending it on its way. The reply is almost instantaneous, Denmark must be bored. He’s on his way, they can expect him later in the day.

The official settles down to work for a few hours, carefully poking Norway awake at lunchtime. The groan that Norway makes as he wakes up is not dissimilar to the noise of a creaking snowdrift as the nation peels himself off the desktop. Several of his joints crack audibly as he pushes himself to an upright position. The official winces and offers Norway a hand up, this motion is interrupted by Denmark barrelling through the door. Denmark is finishing a conversation over his shoulder even as he greets them, creating a hurricane of exuberance in their previously peaceful office.

This is the first time that the official has been around for one of Denmark’s interventions, they’ve only heard about them in the short time they’ve worked in the Storting. It comes as rather a surprise, therefore when they find themselves whisked off with both nations to a secluded cafe for lunch. Denmark is rambling in Norwegian, and the young official can only think its for their benefit as they are perfectly aware of Norway’s ability to speak Danish.

Norway is quiet as Denmark leads them on a familiar route to their regular cafe, happy to let Denmark talk. Denmark is telling them small anecdotes from his week, about the cats he’s seen and the people he’s met. The young official is struck by how much Denmark seems to care about each of the people he mentions, even though it’s likely that that’s the only meeting he’ll ever have with any of them.

The cafe’s staff greet the pair of nations warmly, with the familiarity of regular acquaintance. Norway speaks for the first time in their excursion to introduce the young official as Cai, shocking them as they hadn’t realised that he’d learned their name. They are seated in the corner of the cafe, with both nations choosing seats that will let them watch the room around them as they eat.

Cai is unsure of the procedure that both nations seem so familiar with, neither picking up a menu, as they both seemingly know what they want already. Denmark realises this and moves to reassure them with well practiced words that have been used for multiple borrowed officials. Norway smiles briefly at them in reassurance before returning to staring vaguely into space, eyes occasionally flicking into focus as rare customers moved about in the cafe.

Once the young waitress that Denmark greets with enquiries about her family and her studies has departed with food orders, Denmark begins to ask Cai about how they are finding work at the Storting. Norway adds to the question, asking about particular projects that Cai has worked on. Cai is a little bit shocked that Norway even knows who they are, let alone that Norway is aware of their work. Understandably, their reply is a little flustered as Norway is the most important figure to ever pay a slightest amount of interest in their life. Norway smiles again at the response, and Denmark nods along, and somehow this lunch is no longer an intervention for Norway. The only thing that Cai can liken it to is a meal with their parents, as both nations seem honestly curious about Cai’s wellbeing.

When Norway stops to explain a project to Denmark, the pride in his voice about the whole team that worked on it is audible for anybody to hear. Cai has never felt more seen. When their nation references Cai’s work directly, Norway smiles and uses the right pronouns with an ease that their own parents had struggled to achieve.

It’s almost the most that Cai has heard Norway talk, save for the feedback he provides on new bills that the Storting proposes. With Denmark present, the tension that Norway usually holds in his shoulders is gone, and he smiles more often, and Cai thinks that their nation is truly happy here and now.

When the food comes, Norway exchanges a few quiet words with their waitress that make her smile so brightly Cai thinks she might start glowing. She leaves them with a spring in her step and Norway watches her go with a smile. Cai gets the feeling that he’s proud of her too.

Whilst Cai initially focuses on their own food, they take a second to notice how Norway picks at his meal, only eating it in tiny bites. Denmark does less eating than talking, and Cai notices that he’s watching Norway all the while, trying to keep the nation more focused on him than the food he’s eating. Cai’s not sure what Denmark’s intent is, but Norway is eating, so they guess it’s working.

Even with the couple of hours of sleep Norway’s had on his desk, he looks visibly exhausted but they return to the Storting after lunch nonetheless. Denmark sets himself up in Norway’s office, and Cai returns to work in their own department, who all look at them knowingly.

That evening, anyone watching would notice Norway going home on time for the first time that week, Denmark following behind, not holding his hand, but close enough to be doing so. When they come in slightly late the next morning, Denmark gives the members of Cai’s department an extremely obvious wink, which is when Cai realises that Norway has always known about the spreadsheet and the interventions. But he doesn’t seem to mind, so they empty out the spreadsheet and start again.

**Author's Note:**

> We’ve had one of Norway taking care of Denmark. It’s time to repay the favour. Also they each have a population of over 5,000,000 people, that’s a lot of kids. Cai is not meant to represent any actual Storting official.


End file.
